In imperishable remembrance of the innocent victims who were murdered in our Country by the Spanish fascists and their indigenous henchmen, in their criminal insurrection that begun today 90 years ago

 

In imperishable remembrance of the innocent victims who were murdered in our Country by the Spanish fascists and their indigenous henchmen, in their criminal insurrection that begun today 90 years ago

[...]

Chapter 15 – The Nazi-Fascism: final form of Spanish imperialism. The First Francoism

The story of the gestation of the Spanish fascist system, of the Spanish Republic, and of the response that this one gave – or should have given – it, remains still to be done. It falls outside the scope of this work, as well as any evaluation – which would necessarily be critical – of the direction that was given to that response; with the consequences known of all and that bring us to the present situation.

Now then, in the Civil and International War of 1936-1939 the Spaniards, whether they perhaps did not know very well who was going to win, had it however very clear who in all cases had to lose. In the game of the war and its post-war period there were two hypothetical potential winners or losers; but the Basque and Catalan peripheral third parts: scapegoats of the Spanish National-imperialists both “from the right” as well as “from the left” (and for all of them appointed and agreed losers), had no other virtuality but the defeat in all cases.

The Spanish Republic had it clear its own nationalist strategy: to draw the attention of the fascists against the Resistance of the Basque People and its magnified and “invulnerable Iron Belt” of Bilbao, in order to slow down, weaken and displace the offensive that the Francoists were carrying out on its main front in Spain; and to use the Francoist advance so as to liquidate the de facto Government of Euzkadi (after having the Republic itself prevented, delayed or limited its consolidation), leaving General Franco the task of finally smashing it with the guarantee of the Condor Legion and Division Littorio. Only the scheduled losers themselves did not notice anything; that’s why they were losers and had to pay the price which is paid for of it.

 

“With the collapse of the Basque front we’ve got rid of that problem for tomorrow.” (Manuel Azaña; President of the second Spanish Republic. From his speech in Alicante, at the end of 1937.) Here are other statements from Azaña: “We have to thank Franco because of having resolved for us the Basque problem, which is now a thing of the past. In matter of regionalism, we understand between ourselves sooner and better with Falangists than with separatists.” Etc.

 

“The Decree of Franco, abolishing the autonomy of Catalonia, had passionate adherents among the Republicans. I’m not waging war against Franco in order that a stupid and provincial separatism may sprout us in Barcelona. In no way. I’m waging war by Spain and for Spain. By its greatness and for its greatness. They are wrong those who do presume otherwise. There is only but one nation: Spain!” Etc. etc. (J. Negrin; Prime Minister of the Government in the II Spanish Republic and member of the PsoE.)

So, after five – from 1931 to 1936 – “republican” years of repression, terrorism, newspapers closure and jerking the Basque People about through voting and “statutism”, the “strategists” of the Pnv and its satellites, once Franco had risen in rebellion, ceased to play at having “elections and democracies” and, biting once more the bait, did replace the political realism by the “Christian-democrat pink dreams” and warmongering romanticism, so as to throw the Country: without preparation and without having a single effective ally, into a lonely, “unforeseen”, improvised and suicidal war against the Axis Powers. The Basque People showed so its national vigour and desire, but also its lack of maturity and political sense; circumstances that left it decimated and powerless, with its vanguard executed, exiled and terrorized, and itself wholly diminished and weakened by the new totalitarian Spanish version of its historical constants, fed during eight centuries of conquests. The consequences for our Country exceed any weighting. In this lost cause were mobilized, decimated and bled the scarce or illusory human and material resources of the Basque People, caught in the trap set by international Fascism.

In Spain, the war was regarded from the beginning with scepticism by many, who were increasingly more in numbers; even among those who – by force or by principle – participated in it in the republican side. The recognition of defeat had begun long before General Franco – “captive and disarmed the Red Army” – would consider it finished the war. Several efforts for a capitulation, which would put an end as soon as possible the terrible and useless carnage, began immediately, in full war, in charge of a sector of the “Spanish workers’ socialist Party-PsoE”. But that was to ignore the occurred changes and decisive differences at a global scale, as well as the added means, goals, determination, resentment and hate of the Spanish Army, Church and ruling classes, which did not think even for a moment to be deprived of the costly victory that had been their determining objective from the first moment. Because for them it was not about a new military and monarchical-clerical uprising in the style of those in the nineteenth century, nor a pale imitation of German or Italian totalitarianism, but about a particularly and exceptionally virulent form of Fascism: the final result of centuries of backlash reaction and despotism.

“In ‘the rise of the western world’ (Douglass North & Robert Thomas; ‘The Rise of the Western World: A New Economic History’), in its development and subsequent transformations, the blocking of the new forms of production-association carried out by the totalitarian system has been the more constantly retarding factor of the whole European history.

“Freedom is a productive force and a social structure. In this respect, and since the end of the Middle Ages, the social structures of Spain and of France have evolved in a totalitarian sense: from the agricultural absolutism, up to the most recent models of totalitarian integration. The adoption by those societies of the new system of production-association, and their local reception of the mass of technological innovation carried out and accumulated in the areas of democratic organization of European society, have been as inevitable as incomplete and belated, because they have always remained subordinated to the conditions and objectives established by their permanently Nationalist-imperialistic – and thus totalitarian – systems.” Etc. (See the full text in Chapter V – ‘Evolution of French and Spanish totalitarianism: the Fascism’, of our general work of reference: ‘Euskal Herria and the Kingdom of Nabarre, or the Basque People and its State, against French-Spanish imperialism’. ‘Euskal Herria and the Kingdom of Nabarre, or the Basque People and its State, against French-Spanish imperialism’.)

Spanish Fascism did not seek coexistence, nor conciliation, nor domination but the extermination of the enemy, and this from the first moment. So as to visualize it, we bring as an example the declaration of a notorious supporter of the fascist military uprising as was José María Pemán, head of the “Commission on Culture and Education” in the “Technical Board of State” (in practice, the first Franco’s Government during the war), which had as its task the purging of teachers from public education; a task carried out with a terrifying result. This is how the Francoist agent expressed himself in a harangue broadcast on the radio:

 

“[Is this] A war that, however hard, I tell you it was necessary and was convenient. [...] The idea of an alternation or political game has been replaced forever by the idea of extermination and expulsion, the only one valid in the face of an enemy who is doing in Spain a devastation like never before in history has ever caused us any invading nation.” Etc. (J. M. Pemán; a fragment from his speech broadcast on 1936, July the 24th from the microphones of Radio Jerez, and published in «¡Atención! ¡Atención!… Arengas y crónicas de guerra», Ed. Escelicer-Cerón, Cádiz, 1937.)

Under these guidelines, this extermination was carried out in a conscientious manner not only on the front; also in the cities that were being taken, and even where there was not even war as was the case in the nuclear Nabarre, with systematic “sacas” and “walks” up to the ditches, the chasms and the walls of the cemeteries.

Franco was not Primo de Rivera, Hitler or Mussolini; but, at his own level and in his own way, he was much more dangerous and a harder nut to crack than them and deceived them everyone, one after the other. The opposition to Franco could neither win the war nor the post-war; it couldn’t even resist long enough to reach a negotiated solution. The absolute victory of General Franco and his Axis Allies liquidated the unstable balance of forces of the Spanish Second Republic, smashed the opposition, established the absolute power of the reaction, and set up the dictatorship and domination of Spanish big capital, large landowners, Catholic Church, and nationalist and colonialist forces; with their Army as a real political class.

The Spanish nationalist and fascist Army won the war in a full way; and the Spanish people, after the monumental beating of 1936-39, the holocaust and revenge, with an economy in ruins and subjected to Francoist terror and retaliation, didn’t need any hassle. Just as the French had done in 1940, the Spaniards understood the terrible lesson and the advantages – verified and enjoyed through centuries of despotism – of submission to the order established by means of criminal Violence and Terror. The “democratic forces” had unilaterally, generously and officially “waived to all active and passive violence” (sic).

Thus, following the defeat and after having announced and waited during decades for the imminent “collapse” of the Francoist régime as a result first of the Allied intervention; then, of the armed resistance; and then, of the “peaceful general strike”, the traditional Spanish opposition did finally understand and could no longer hide that the only real collapse was its own one, that the triumph of the Spanish Fascism was normal and definitive, not an abnormal parenthesis in the institutions, and that the political future of Spain was going to rest on it.

Etc.

(See the full text in our work: ‘‘Notes on the History of the Basque People/Euskal Herria and its State: the Kingdom of Nabarre’.)